


honeysuckle embraces thorn

by starrywisterias



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1990s, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Mutual Pining, Rey is that Twist, Secret Relationship, Self-Discovery, Slow Burn, Twist on Childhood Sweethearts Cliché, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-30
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:22:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22472518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starrywisterias/pseuds/starrywisterias
Summary: "So, anyone's caught your eye?"Rey snorts.Looks down at the cheery shasta daisies in bloom, white-and-yellow wrapped in a small bundle before her locker door. No note.Rose bumps her arm and picks up the flowers. "Well, whoever they are—they must be up your alley."Meaning:1) preferably taller than her 5'7 height2) knows not to trample on any grass or flowers3) is most definitely NOT her adopted sister's childhood crush and self-proclaimed soulmate finally back from a long absence, and goes by the name of Ben Solo
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 23
Kudos: 80





	1. spf 50 homecoming

**_1995_ **

Her short navy blue shorts keep riding up the small of her thighs.

Tight spandex with the school emblem of a dolphin near the right cuff, she’s still in her volleyball uniform, sweaty, a knot tightly wound in her stomach.

The alarm hasn’t gone off—it’s not supposed to for another hour. Practice isn’t over, but the large crowd gathering inside the gymnasium forces time to stand still, the ticking green buzzer going ignored.

Underneath the tall net she stands across from, the waxed auditorium floor is all shiny and squeaky wooden floorboards that reflect the usually brilliant splatters of fluorescent lights hanging from the ceiling. 

Until it isn’t.

Because there’s a slippery stream of sanguine slithering just past the threaded white attack line nearing her ruffled, laced-up shoes coming undone from their worn soles to battered tongues. 

On the floor lies Jessika Pava, right forward of the team. A lump on the floor, clutching her head, a waterfall of burgundy red pouring from the seams of a diagonal cut on her temple.

Rey hadn’t meant to.

She really, really didn’t mean to hit the ball. That. Hard.

She didn’t even realize it carried all the weight of her invisible anger—every bit of it braided into the threads, ready to coil into action and razor-cut her feelings into permanence. 

“Jesus, Connix—” she hears to her right, a teammate backing away. “That was a mean spike.”

Rolling her lip back and forth, she chews on it silently—she wants to say something, anything. But nothing comes out. No whimper, stutter, or plea. 

“Connix! Get over here.”

Coach Talevara stands alone, watching her sternly after directing some girls to go get the nurse.

On some days, it still takes her getting used to the surname. The one on her official documents now, medical to academic to driver’s permit—no longer a Doe. A whole year since she was a wide-eyed fifteen-year-old girl anxious to prove to anyone that she could love and do so, _so_ well if given the chance.

Rey looks down. Making her way forward, she pauses on the sturdy court—so different from the silky, sandy slopes of terrain they usually practice on outside the school, all covered in brushstrokes of SPF 50 sunscreen—and forces the words past her teeth, hurriedly:

“I’m so sorry, Jess.”

She winces at how lame her apology sounds.

The girls around Jessika don’t say anything, they continue to pet and coo at the victim of this mess. She’s not sure if Jess heard her, though. The girl is still holding her head, but she’s sitting upright now, her legs stretching across from her, holding her to reality—one Rey desperately wants to flee from.

“Connix!”

Rey moves onward, the silver coach whistle in direct eyesight, Coach Talevara’s heavy gunmetal stare pressing down on her fight-or-flight instincts, her lungs the gas pedal—she remains tight-lipped.

A pause.

Then a sigh.

“…You’ve been distracted this entire summer, Rey. I don’t know what you’re going through, but please try to leave it out of the court.”

She braces herself for the rest, her eyes swimming behind a watery film blurring everything around her.

“We need you. I need you to be good.” He shakes his head.

She feels her shoulders fall minutely and her stomach give out.

Coach Talevara looks away finally, tightens his fingers on the clipboard, and clears his throat.

“You’re dismissed for today. Dismissed the rest of the week, actually. Until you prove yourself the co-captain this team and I need you to be. Know you can be...”

The team, three-time defending regional and state champions back-to-back-to-back.

Coach Talevara, USA Olympic gold-medal winner for men’s volleyball, born into a long line of otherworldly athletes and old money at his barely-out-of-college age, coaching being the next to-do on his checklist of chasing glory.

Rey, herself, the applauded underdog heroine; a story of rags to riches, a young, talented prodigy in the making at Naboo Prep—the number one private co-ed high school in California, in the top five for molding and churning out Olympian alumni, and having former pupils listed on Forbes 500 since the conception of the magazine.

***

With her chin tucked in, she pushes past the double door entrance of the gym, tracing the metal black railing down the steps—skipping two at a time, a jump here, a skip there—she lands at the bottom, barely missing the pebble in her way.

Kicking it, she makes her way over to the sprawling green lawn before the track field, sprinklers leaving small rainbows over the wet ground, the iron-rich-red of the dirt making the white cursive lines of the running sport glow incandescently.

The late afternoon sky blushes in whorls of magenta and tiger-slashes of orange. Beyond the school parking lot, the sun sinks, settling into the azure bed of ocean her school overlooks from its regal cliff. Underneath a swaying willow tree is where she sits for a moment, her bag flopped onto its side, her hands working her loose shoelaces back into tight knots.

August is coming to an end.

A new school semester is approaching rapidly.

She’ll almost miss the sunburns from time out frolicking in the sun; the way they melt away their lobster-red shell, leaving behind cracks and pieces until those too are swept away with a gentle hand, wet rag, and aloe vera—newly bronzed skin revealed, shiny and smooth to the touch.

Sparing a glance at the watch around her wrist, she notes it’s still early—the little hand playing catch-up to the big hand.

Way too early for Kaydel to come and pick her up in her new car since she doesn’t know she’s just been dismissed.

Rey exhales and stands back up.

***

The walk back home is paved with verdant hedges towering close to the clouds, red-brick golden gates barring mile-long looping entryways, and oak trees dotting sidewalks—the dissipating sunlight trickling from between twigs and falling leaves in the anticipation of autumn around the corner.

Nothing out of the ordinary. 

Except when she gets home, she’s met with a rare sight.

Befuddled, she looks around the street.

Left and right.

But there’s no one…

…and there’s still an extra car lining the driveway, taking up a spot in the open bay garage, parked somewhat askew, the front tires facing the side carelessly.

No red ribbon with a bow on top screaming _Surprise!_

And worst of all—

There, there—on her sequestered small patch of garden she’d claimed as her own, that she’d been working on since the blusterous winter season had thawed into a young, primrose spring—was a row of knocked over watering cans and terra-cotta planting pots.

All crushing her daylilies and bending her hyper violet-purple salvia spikes. 

Storming up the porch and past the front door with the frenetic energy of an afternoon summer rainstorm, Rey thunders toward the house with a keen determination.

And stops abruptly in the kitchen area—a wide, open space, Tuscan sun-drenched tiles and small sketched Italian herbs lining the walls elegantly with an island in the middle.

An island occupied by two people looking back at her.

As though _she_ was the crazy one.

“Kaydel! Why—… What?”

Her sister wipes her hands on her messy apron, tell-tale cookie dough and broken eggshell parts adorning the fabric. She smiles, not directly to anyone, yet for all to see—a treaty offered in a tense, warring room.

“This is Rey. The one I told you about—my adopted sister.”

Rey clenches the strap of her backpack hanging on one shoulder, can feel her baby hairs curling from her loosening ponytail as heat flushes her cheeks down to her neck.

Because there, sitting across from her sister—is the object of her recent, most feverish ire all summer.

The reason for her sister running upstairs to her room after summer school every day for the past month. The reason she half-listens to Rey about anything anymore before she’s begging their Mom to use the house phone for hours—to then skipping out on trips to the beach three blocks from their house so she can go shopping for new dresses and makeup powders and inky mascara tubes that she doesn’t even let Rey borrow. The sole reason why Jessika Pava is now probably scared of her and Coach Talevara’s too disappointed.

So caught up in dreading the arrival of the person threatening to throw off-kilter the balance she’d worked so hard to earn and maintain in her new life—one solid roof and the same walls day in and day out, never having to pack her meager belongings into one trash bag to move out the next month into an unfamiliar rundown house with strange, new faces—she never stopped to think about what the plan of action would be the minute he did show up unannounced.

His large ears are covered by dark hair falling in thick layered waves close to his neck. He’s a pale boy—so unlike the tanned guys she frequently runs into at school. His equally as large nose… she works her jaw as she realizes she’s not finding it as humorous as she once did when Kaydel had thrust photo albums of her childhood onto her lap to look at in an attempt at a bonding session. Whereas all of him looked out of place in polaroid snapshots, he sits across from her a picture of cold regality. 

Despite sitting on a stool, his shoulders tucked in somewhat, his feet pointing inward, tapping away at the air in a show of nonchalance—resentful of any attention on himself—he stands a mammoth in their kitchen, the area feeling smaller than it should.

He’s grown into his looks, it seems—wearing them like a cloak, darker than a forest at night, a black hole eating away at the light around him. Maybe military boarding school had been good for him, from what she’d heard, at least. Kaydel never knew exactly how to answer her questions, torn between fledgling sisterly affection and being a sworn confidant of a best friend.

Silence permeates the air in the room, no movement except for floundering dust particles twirling in pearly refractions of the darkening twilight outside that seeps in from the open windows.

Ben Solo stares back at her, unrelenting.

“He killed my flowers,” Rey spits.

She doesn’t come home early from school that entire week.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *attack line = the net in volleyball terms
> 
> :)
> 
> this is my first time posting a fanfic so please go easy on me <3


	2. bumpy car headrest

Paperback in hand, Rey laid splayed out on a slab of wet sandstone near the pool.

On her belly, she resembles a lazing starfish in her pink tank and shorts, freckles set alight in the magnifying-glass glow of afternoon daylight.

Still cerulean waters full of chlorine and coconut tanning lotion gently lap at her fingers as she glides a free hand out of boredom, distorting the sunlight reflections surfing the gentle waves.

A billow of steaming ripe pomegranate, marigold petals, and begonia leaves perfume the air—the soaked herbal concoction escaping the open kitchen windows facing the backyard in transparent euler spirals looping around her nose.

From her spot, she catches glimpses of lavender wisps of hair moving up and down, side to side. Half a forehead in view. Until the figure comes out carrying two cold glasses of iced tea, condensation drops racing each other down the sides.

Amilyn grins at her.

It was the kind of greenhouse August that called for dancing ceremonies of jovial naked torsos and feet, chests exposed and sweat-shiny unrestrained thighs, all bare to the vivid hot ball in the sky—a burning star millions of light-years away that positively melted the blue-robin-egg sky atmospheres below, the yolk dripping in thick and humid heatwaves.

All the way past the International Space Station orbiting Earth—

Down to the wispy french vanilla clouds over the northern mainland of California—

Frying Naboo in an oven-heated skillet, glimmering scorched breezes radiated amongst the potted palm trees and giant jade-yellow agaves in the Connix backyard:

The dog days of summer were on their last throes, full-throttle.

“Are you finished with your summer reading?”

Rey groans. “Almost,” she mutters in defeat.

“Well, I remember my days with Mr. Tekka. Every day had some sort of pop quiz—it’s been over twenty years since I’ve been in a classroom with him, but I know he’ll somehow make it another twenty still torturing kids. You just happen to be next in line, Sunshine.”

“I guess.” She takes her drink. “Thanks, Amilyn—”

“Rey,” the lilt in her tone gives her pause, a thin border between gentle and cautious, testing, “you know you can call me—” _Mom_. She purses her lips, wraps an arm around her middle, and clears her throat. The word never makes it past her throat, but it weighs heavily in the air around them.

Rey sets her drink down and pushes closer to where Amilyn lounges. “Sorry, sorry. Bad habit, I know. Promise.”

A door glides open and from the second-story balcony, Kaydel shouts:

“Rey! Do you wanna go out tonight?”

Amilyn frowns, the ice in her drink clinking as she takes a sip.

Shifting her neck, Rey looks up to see her sister leaning over the classic ivory baluster.

“What for?”

“I don’t know yet—just something to do.”

“Uh, I—I was gonna—” she shifts again, looks at Amilyn sheepishly, her copy of Frankenstein abandoned on the floor, bookmark slotted just in the middle, a hundred or so more pages free of lemon-yellow highlighter.

Amilyn simply shakes her head—tired smile lines bracketing her mouth—as she gets up from the lounge chair, one arm raised in the air, the other on her back as she stretches her spine. “It’s alright, Sunshine. I trust you to keep the house from burning down when I’m out for a while tonight.”

Rey doesn’t miss the pale circle below the knuckle on her right hand’s ring finger. So, she’s back to not wearing her ring then. Mr. Connix must’ve called in to say his work trip was being extended another couple of weeks and so their road from separation to reconciliation had taken yet another detour.

Raising her cup, she salutes the older woman before she heads back inside.

Takes a moment.

And then peers back up at her sister who’s suspiciously smiling down at her nails, cordless telephone skillfully balanced between a shoulder and ear.

Rey chews her cheek. “So, just us or…?”

Kaydel rolls her eyes playfully. “Of course. I miss you—miss when you actually lived here too, you know?”

She ignores the sarcastic jab and concedes.

It’s a small victory. 

Besides, her sister was right.

They hadn’t hung out all summer. She could barely remember what they did the last time they spent more than an hour together not at mandatory family dinners or what they joked about in their ten-minute conversations over water fountains when her volleyball practice breaks coincided with Kaydel’s cheerleading interludes.

Sure, most of the fault—Rey thought—rested on Kaydel considering she was too busy making starry eyes at the jerk who moved back into town. But she could shoulder some of the blame.

Ever since last week, any sight of that black Wrangler in her driveway or parallel-parked on her street and she’d hightail it down to Rose’s or Finn’s. Sometimes, she'd even try to weasel her way to the top of the gym bleachers or the empty beach sandlot at school during practice hours, but Coach Talevara would always sniff her out and promptly throw her a silent look, all-knowing, and she’d scurry on out back into a dreamily-lit awaiting suburbia, the tangerine sun sinking into a sea of blueberries.

Rey smiles and props herself up on an elbow. “Maybe we can go to the movies or something?”

“Oh! Well, Paige was just telling me about a house party at Snap’s and—” Kaydel chatters away in excitement, tells her she’ll let everyone know they’re going.

She sighs.

Lays her head back on the heated floor even as the stone singes her ear, but she refuses to look up when she waves a hand in blasé agreement. The things she'd do for Kaydel… it’s what a good sister would do, right?

The glass door shuts.

***

In the blink of an eye, everything around her is melting a little: the liquid black sky, the silver gel-penned stars, and neon lights bleeding color everywhere.

Metallic moonlight beams on the curved roads, lonely of any wandering midnight pedestrians, on the way to the party—the house at the end of the cul-de-sac pinned with the bodies of upperclassmen and puppy-excited sophomores tripping on the sidewalk or plastered above tall windows, flannel jackets and denim jeans the pattern of the roof.

Inside, the air is drugged in maraschino sugar, lip-stinging spirits, and lime with salt.

It’s amateur and duct-tape-equivalent first aid, full of mistakes waiting to happen and weekend liberation.

Kaydel giggles in her ear and Rey shakes her head in amusement. Holding hands with each other, they scramble past the lawn and front door, broken stained-window shards a festive wreath on the floor. Walking through the heavy ozone layer of isopropyl seeping into pores of splotched skin, it makes her head spin in wonderment.

“Let’s try to find Paige!”

Confetti of lights, strobing and pulsing north, south, west, east—an everywhere-all-at-once permutation of senseless directions carelessly lost in free will renders her bubbling laugh semi-frozen. She clutches to her side for—

And where— 

Where did Kaydel run off to?

“Rey!”

Rose’s familiar face bobs up and down amidst the grinding faceless crowd—she’s shouting words falling on deaf ears before she gets close enough to clasp onto a hand to drag her to the patio lit by tangled-up strings of Christmas lights, skipping over red pixie cups and half-lit cigarettes on the way.

“Is that Finn over there?” She asks once they get to a clearing.

Rose glances back. “Just follow me. I told him to stay back so no one could jack our seats. Mitaka was too scared alone,” she laughs.

It’s clear the boys are in the middle of a heated conversation when they get near.

“—Ben Solo’s back?”

Rey plops down on an Adirondack chair and gives Finn a weird look. “…Yes? Where have you been?”

Finn looks up at her and scoffs before whistling a droll chirp, a corner of his lip pulling downward. Pensive.

“Explains why Poe didn’t wanna show up s’all.”

Rose hums to the echoey synths vibrating the soundscape all around them, no discernible melody or rhythm, and downs a gulp of her cup.

A looong gulp.

“Okay, fine—” Rey groans as she reaches around to shrug off her black jacket and ties it around her waist “—I’ll bite. What are you guys not telling me?”

Perched on the floor, Mitaka rubs the bend of his arm and winces.

Finn’s shoulders slacken and his heart falls onto his feet, gives them life as they begin to tap away with an energy she’s never seen him wear before. Constricted, almost… but Finn was nothing if honest with her since the day they’d met at the front table of their shared Chemistry class.

“It’s nothing—we just never really got along with him.” 

Rey frowns but nods along. She wonders how was it that this guy managed the feat of somehow pissing everyone within a fifty-mile radius off, but had Kaydel convinced he was some sort of teddy bear.

“He’s fucked up and rude. Gives off a bad aura—I mean, the guy’s pretty much only got one person who likes and puts up with him and that’s just because Kaydel knew him when they were in diapers and shit.”

"We are so not having this conversation right now. It’s a buzzkill,” Rose laments. She looks down at her cup for a while before twisting it upside down above her head and pretends to peer inside, as if into the distance, with one eye shut, the other a telescope.

Finn chuckles as he takes it away from her.

“I know that damn look— _fine_.” His sneakers scuffle the dirt. “I’ll go get more drinks.”

Rose whips around to face her the second he leaves, leans her head on her shoulder, and closes her eyes as if floating into a dream.

“Now let me catch you up on how hot Coach looks in those new joggers he’s been wearing all week—Jess almost got a new set of stitches on the other side of her head for staring too hard.”

Mitaka leans closer, his mouth partially open in shock. "Jess got stitches? What happened?" 

Rey ducks her head a bit, a smile of embarrassment wiggling its way onto her face as she makes a show of shrugging in bewilderment.

***

And for the next hour or so, time warps into a standstill—minutes passed marked by gone-through ounces of jungle juice pooling their stomachs. The world is plugged into a wired socket, she swears—a neon tinge to the air as though ribbons of high-speed colors erupted from a blown electrical circuit, all the particles charging her body heat and expelling through jittery hands and dancing feet.

It’s on the—what? Fourth? Maybe fifth? drink run that she joins Finn on when she finally catches sight of her sister and Paige.

She pounds the last of her beer and crushes the can on the concrete near where she sat cross-legged, the wooden chair long abandoned.

Two dizzying blobs move left and right, somewhat unfocused—before Rey pats Finn on the back and tells him she’ll catch him in a bit.

Kaydel’s sitting out on the porch steps, tears staining black mascara on her face as Paige Tico consoles her.

Rey runs up to them, bloodstream rapidly coursing through invigorated veins, bolstered by liquid courage. “What’s wrong?”

Paige shakes her head before she breathes a tired air and proceeds to curse.

“Douchebag won’t even show up for her.”

Kaydel rubs her face in frustration. “Paige—stop. H-he’s not like that—I should’ve known better.”

“What?” Rey interjects.

Kaydel coughs. “I used the phone to tell Ben to come over. That it was the last party of the summer before s-school—to just unwind and stuff,” her words come out jumbled, faster than her mind can proofread. “And I know it’s not his thing and I just kept pushing and pushing and—” Her sobs reach a crescendo.

But Rey doesn’t hear it, just the words.

“Wait,” she scrunches her forehead and hopes she sounds calm instead of the mess of nerves she feels inside, “was this—was this all just for you to hang out with him?” Her voice pitches. “Are you serious, Kay? Did you even want me here with you in the first place?”

Kaydel rubs her eyes. “Rey, stop. Is it so wrong of me to want two people that I care for to be by my side? Just to stand by the other for one fucking second instead of making me pick and choose? As if I don't know you can't stand him?”

It's eery. 

The silence that follows, a hollow thing—the music from inside the house pounds away at her ears and skull. But it's more of a thudding _thud thud thud_ that syncs with her heartbeat, all erratic and messy.

“I just want my two best friends to be friends.” 

Paige looks away from the scene, uncomfortable. “Why don’t you take her home, Rey?” she says under her breath, helping her sister stand up.

Her mouth doesn’t open and instead twists to the side.

Her hands stay by the sides of her waist, arms crossed in half annoyance.

Rey hates parties. Absolutely cannot stand them.

But this one…

Well, it wasn’t so bad.

She thought it would’ve been fun to go with her new sister, spend some time together. And when that plan got thrown overboard into choppy seas without a lifejacket, she managed to maroon herself on a boozy island with her own friends, pineapple rum their treasure loot. Now the unwanted rescue helicopter was distorting her plans, its riotous presence bending palm trees and whipping sand all over the place, essentially bringing the festivities to an end when no one had shot the flare gun to be rescued in the first place. 

“—oh fuck—” Kaydel stumbles on the cracked pavement as she reaches for her, the ground barely holding her vertical by the tip of her heel before gravity could yank down on her dress.

Rey shakes her head.

She couldn’t stay mad at the helpless blonde before her.

A small crack tears through her sculpted veneer of anger. 

At least now, it would be just the two of them like she'd originally thought.

Kaydel staggers into her body and small giggles bubble and burst from Rey’s chest as she wraps an arm around her.

“I can’t drive though,” she says.

Kaydel frowns. “What do you mean y-you can’t?”

Rey pushes to the front of the lawn, her sister in tow. “I only have a permit and _no_ ,” she gets in when she sees Kaydel ready to contest, “you can’t supervise.” 

A few steps down the block are enough for them to reach their car.

Kaydel groans. “Okay, fine. How about this—” she unlocks the passenger door and climbs in, “I’m way drunker than y-you. Just go slowly, yeah? Take the side roads.”

Rey doesn’t let go of the door, though.

She bites her lip. “Maybe I should go get someone? Or just wait a few more min—“

“Rey,” Kaydel sighs as she pulls down the hem of her short dress. “I’m tired. Our house is only like ten minutes away. We’d already b-be there if you stopped complaining.”

Rey shuts the passenger door. 

***

When she manages to slide into the garage—barely missing the edges of the open bay pillars, the ignition turns off. She unlatches the keys and keeps her hands on the steering wheel. Just thankful that all the lights at the house are off and Amilyn's car didn't get sideswiped.

She missed it pulling in but from her peripheral vision, she can see someone.

There, a lone silhouette huddled by the front door, rising—

and rising—

and towering on over, a black hoodie covering their face.

But his body stands distinct.

His words, even more so when she inches her door open:

“Are you fucking serious?”

Rey pushes her body tight against the vehicle and hesitates to walk past him—wobbles a little in place.

Kaydel comes rushing around from the passenger side and tackles him with a one-armed hug. Tries to pat his chest in reassurance.

“S’fine, fine—it’s fine,” she somehow manages to compile in a sentence.

Rey knows those clenched fists—the only boy for miles who wears his anger permanently.

Sharply bladed cheekbones, a beak of a nose, tall forehead, a menacing contradiction walking in boyish shoes, a wolf in sheep’s clothes—the technical specs outlining him masculine by default, subjectively handsome and tantalizing according to her sister. But she disagreed.

He wasn’t repulsive by any means.

But it was his expression…

Like he was some uppercase God devotedly spiteful and furious to being demoted to a lowercase god. A major character forced to endure a train wreck of a third act. His brows remained strictly in line, pulled to the center by a pinch of barely restrained frustration—the crescent moon underneath his left eye twitching manically, betraying the tense muscles of his jaw, his molars and canines most likely grinding curse words to dust he would spew as bullets at her if she came any closer.

He may have been beautiful to Kaydel, but his expression …

To Rey, Ben Solo looked downright ugly.

And she was on the receiving end of that wicked curl of lip, a snarl in disgust not cowering from the sordid truth of what he thought of her—desperately wanting to let her know what he thought of her, in fact.

“Did you just drive drunk?”

Rey goes to respond, but her mouth is cotton dry.

It’s all catching up to her, but Ben doesn’t let her get a chance to recuperate.

“You could’ve fucking killed her. What’s wrong with you?”

Kaydel keeps talking, keeps trying to push him back, clattered words of _It’s okay_ and _We’re fine, fine Fine. No one’s f-fault_ —

But Ben isn’t having it, isn’t even paying attention as he tugs Kaydel to stand by his side, upright, his arm slipping around her waist before lifting her from the knees so he can cradle her to his chest.

Rey takes a deep breath, tries hard to keep her vision on him—not at his hazy, brooding twin that appears this way and that depending on how she crinkles her eyes.

“We made it home,” is all she finally says, a spring of unease bursting forth with shame rooting her still in place. “So stop looking at me like I murdered someone.”

He leans in closer—even in the dark, she can feel his shadow falling over her. Can feel it closing in on her, choking her.

She tries to pace back some steps—forgetting the painted steel of the car practically glued to her limbs—as he continues to stare her down, replacing her retreading footsteps with his so silently. Stealing her of much-needed oxygen so violently.

Rey digs her fingernails into her palms, trying to focus on anything but him.

A shiver runs down her vertebrae, each delicate carving of bone singing a different tune in treble clef alarm.

“No, it wouldn’t have been just someone. It would’ve been your sister. I know you come from nowhere, but is the concept of family that foreign to you?” 

And her—the number-one-people-pleaser—

Feels her bones flail in a falling tune.

Crushed.

Wiping her eyes drowning in traitorous tears, she barely sees him as he makes his way into their house, body on auto-pilot—instinctively remembering which potted succulent on the porch the house keys were hidden under, as though every part of this house was waiting for his impending arrival. To resume things as they were. Where she never existed in the first place.

Pressing his rubber-soled shoes over the grass instead of the stepping stones aligned, she looks down to see his footsteps having blazed her garden to ashes.

Unapologetic.

She doesn’t know how long she stands there—lonely girl underneath an oozing black ink sky, tendrils of passing shadows from rustling trees caressing her grieving shoulders and bare thighs and knees kissed with random violet bruises, wiping the aqueous saline gathered on her eyelashes _drip drip dripping_ down her pallid cheeks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...😅


	3. feeding the splinter

The first Monday morning of school arrives in the form of a wandering mockingbird.

Wearing its salt-and-rice coat with white-windowed wings, it flies from the boxwood hedge to the top of a pink oleander tree by the kitchen windowsill and begins to sing.

Amilyn sways side to side, an old flower-power tune stuck in her bandana-wrapped head. The radio cassette nearby plays some vacuum cleaning commercial and its pockmarks of white-noise-static between every word fill the room. Below her, the griddle sizzles on the oven top. Air pockets of sugar and butter pop and crack.

Too much noise if Mr.Connix were around to say anything, warm spectacles and smile, dark oxfords and literature-class brown sweater—a semi-opened briefcase in a rush out the door, papers with red pen marks sticking out.

In the present, however, Amilyn winks at Rey as she flips a dare-devil pancake, opening her mouth in surprise as she catches it and laughs.

Rey chuckles behind a glass of orange juice sloshing down her throat.

“Are you all set and ready to go?” Amilyn asks her as she gathers the breakfast plates. “It’s still so early.”

“Eh,” is the only sound that crawls out of her throat.

Amilyn quirks a brow. “Eh as in ‘no, you’re not ready’ or as in ‘it’s absolutely still very much early and you agree that this is some abnormal teenager behaviorism you are displaying?’” She walks over to the table and slides three warm pancakes onto a waiting plate.

“Eh as in I’m both ready to go and yes—I thought we already established that I’m the ostrich in a flamboyance of flamingos.” Rey drizzles the sweet syrup on the uneven hot stack.

She wasn’t kidding about that, either. Known in the neighborhood for having fostered kids for years before she got pregnant with Kaydel, Amilyn had been upfront and close with teenage eye rolls and grumpy breakfast manners for a long time.

“—And she’s got humor at the crack of dawn,” Amilyn retorts. “Sunshine, you sure you don’t wanna wait for Kaydel to give you a ride? She should be down any minute now—”

“No, no—it’s fine,” Rey breathes out. “Seriously, I just—I’d prefer to walk. Morning air and all that…” she shrugs half-heartedly.

Lamplight trickling from beneath closed oak doors, quiet creaks on disturbed floorboards, and muted whispers floating past bedroom walls were the only signs Kaydel was still alive since Saturday night. Slippery shadows they were, Rey took to sleeping in all Sunday, from dawn chorus till the cool of evening, while her sister became a sliver of glimpses coming in and out of friends’ cars.

Amilyn turns down the radio.

“Alright, then,” she croons, her voice tinged with an exasperated sing-song mirth.

It reminds her of the mockingbird perched outside, peaceful. Gracious. So blissfully unaware.

***

Through a metal cascade of green rows opening and closing, students bobble in and out of the path to her locker. Everyone looks the same in coordinating navy blue and cotton white uniforms—boys in slacks and blazers, their ties loose, girls in rolled-up skirts flirting mid-thigh and clean, knee-high socks. 

September blues have washed ashore and styrofoam cups of coffee and plans for late-night munchies at the old-school diner in town with friends returning from vacations in the tropics fill the buzz bouncing back and forth between busybody hallways.

228, 229, 230, 231…

Rey’s footing stops awkwardly some feet away, backpack slipping a few inches from her shoulder as her eyes take in the sight of beaming white teeth and glowing bronzed skin, an airy redolence of orange blossoms and the garrigue of southern France pressing into her skin, tugging her hand and pulling her closer:

“You—”

“Finally—”

Jannah Calrissian opens her arms wide, her laughter intertwining with her own—shrieks and giggles barely escaping from within the suffocating bubble of a tight embrace.

Rey searches her face, taking in the curly updo, the wide, excited eyes glimmering a smoky quartz, the blueprint of new overseas horizons etched within.

“You’re back!”

Jannah shrugs like it’s no big deal, her smile threatening to peek out every second betraying her composure. “Of course I am.”

“But like… for real for real?”

“Oui, mademoiselle. Un semestre était plus que suffisant,” Jannah smirks.

Rey punches her arm in jest. “One semester abroad in Paris and you think you’re better than the rest of us. Unbelievable.”

“Which reminds me—” Jannah opens her locker 230, the one right next to her own “—are you still down to help out at my dad’s place later tonight now that I'm back? It'll be like old times.”

Rey bites her lip. It’s not like there’ll be anyone waiting for her at home.

“Free pastries on the house. As always…”

“Did you even have to ask then?”

***

Inside her third period English class, the blackboard stands powdered in lingering particles of salmon-pink and blue chalk. Brown-grocery-bag-covered textbooks line the shelves and the mechanical purr of the electric sharpener in use greet her as she sits in a modest desk—not too at the front or hidden in the back, just off-center.

Enough to see everything.

Like when Mr. Tekka takes out a pile of pop quiz papers.

Or when he opens a desk drawer to set the faulty timer that needs to be thumped twice on his table before it can start ticking.

Or when Ben Solo trudges in…

Stands still in the doorway for a second or two, his eyes scanning over the room for an open seat…

The way he clenches his jaw—a subtle hold and release—when he spots her and subsequently resumes his perusal as though she were a technical glitch.

When he walks close by, nose up in the air and all cold-blooded as he sits two rows away from her—she simply looks the other way, pretending as though the posters of MLA format hold some deep answers to life outside these walls.

When the timer turns on, Rey instead stares intently at the paper bullet-pointed with multiple choice answers and taps her wooden pencil against her lip. Trying hard to focus.

Pencil and pen scrape against paper for minutes.

Mr. Tekka’s desk remains, for the most part, empty of finished papers.

On the eleventh question, she looks up to see Solo reaching down near his leg—pull a plastic water bottle out, drink, and set it down quietly. His fingers knit and purl, shred the sticky paper brand of the bottle until it’s close to nudity. Bit by sticky bit, he then tries pressing on the papers again, an uneven puzzle coming to life; what should be the peak of a glacier mountain remains in equal symmetry with the other crested hills, the word Arrowhead difficult to read and clearly placed wrong.

Somehow satisfied, he opens a new thin book, a hand coming up to nest his temple as he reads in the silence of a class still occupied.

When class is almost over, she gives up on the last two short answer questions about Mary Shelley and turns her work in.

It was a sign of the universe—hating English class on its own merits wasn’t enough, no, the dreaded third period of the day just needed an extra unsavory spice thrown in to make her retch.

As long as she doesn’t look to her right, it’s almost easy to forget he’s there, sharing the same air as her—no matter how much he wishes for the opposite.

She doesn’t think about him all that much once the bell rings for lunch though—of how he’s infiltrated her house and now her school. Besides, none of her friends bring him up either way.

From that moment on though, like a wooden splinter, he pricks her senses, renders her still, wary and careful—more than she’d like to admit.

So when she ambles into the cafeteria, headed straight towards her usual table—outside by one of the many willow trees, Rose munching on a turkey sandwich with her CD player on and Finn with one foot on the bench dusting off the tiniest smudges of dirt off his new sneakers, she slows her pace when she sees him again.

Off to the corner where the food lays in a paneled buffet—a little more isolated and withdrawn—Solo hovers, holding a… wet mop? Intensely focused on looking down at the floor, the stick jerks left. Then right. Then left again. Harsh, uneven circles. 

Quin Moonwood, from her Mechanics class, does a double-take as he passes by Solo. The red tray of fries he carries teetering a little too dangerously close to the side—and Solo freezes. Glares at Quin, daring him to take one wrong, unbalanced step.

Quin averts his gaze and continues to walk to his table as though nothing had happened, but she catches the way his back gives in from its ruler-straight position the minute he sits with his friends, safe and sound and far away from the boy using the mop more like a weapon than the custodian tool it was.

She takes a page off his book and feigns ignorance when she nears the banquet of food, her tray filling with green grapes and breaded chicken strips.

The crowd of three becomes four when to her side, Poe Dameron plops himself down—toothy grin and messed up dress shirt smelling like roses and juniper, the soft wind sighing admirably in the thick of his dark curls.

Rey clasps a hand on his shoulder to bring him closer and sniffs his neck.

“What—”

“Chanel?” She squints her eyes.

Rose snorts. “You mean Chanel from Chemistry? Or…”

“Excuse you—” Poe unlatches from her grasp “—maybe I just happen to like the smell of flowers.” A dimple ripples the canvas of his cheek mischievously before he nudges his nose against Rey. “Or maybe I just want to smell good for Miss Gaia over here.”

Finn frowns and shakes his head.

From the view the wall of glass permits inside the lunchroom, she sees her sister—a lithe, blonde beacon—busy talking with her hands, waveringly gentle but serious—like tending to an injured bird foolishly trying for a broken-wing flight.

Ben Solo, head above the rest, stares right in her direction, blank-faced.

***

With Autumn shimmying off its boots on the welcome mat to enter the house, the days are shorter too.

Foliage changes and Naboo molts from its summery clothing.

Mars reds, maple oranges, and crispin yellows flurry in the wind and sweep the streets, their crunches like crispy caramel apple bites, their numbers blending like the gold of pages of myths and bygone epics. Rey sees how the nipping fall winds ruffle thin summer dresses worn in denial of time changing as she makes her way downtown after school.

Down the concrete sidewalks dotted with the hanging flower baskets of Bell Lane and taking a right onto where murals burst in colors near storefront walls that local artists painted commencing Yew Street is Lando Calrissian’s decades-old café.

The good ol’ hotspot she’d worked with Jannah for most of their Junior year before she hopped on a plane for La Ville Lumière—it was a way to pocket some extra cash for that one super-rare vinyl Rose had her eyes on and the basketball game tickets they’d surprised Finn with as a collective birthday present.

Outside, the tall streetlamps zap alive as the amber of daylight dims away, the roar of motor engines hightailing it home and schoolchildren jumping rope—the air molecules slamming against pavement _whish-woosh whish-woosh_ —greeting her.

The thrumming thrill of a much-needed routine solidifies in the marrow of her bones after how this summer’s gone. 

Taking turns waitressing on late-dining couples bundled in olive green jackets and belted blue jeans tucked in tanned boots or warming her hands as she serves the thirtieth hot chocolate mug into the dusky purple of the night—it feels good that some things might still be the same as last year. 

That this one part of her new life doesn’t have to be disturbed as the rest.

But similar to the way a splinter continues to make its presence known—a jolt of pinching vexation in a time of otherwise forgetful dullness—Ben Solo stands inside the shop.

Holding yet another custodian tool: a broom this time.

Lando laughs at something he says and pats a strong hand on his back, the other arm slapping a black apron leveled at Solo’s stomach. When he looks up and sees Rey standing by the door, clammy fingers and fluttering eyes in disbelief, his smile grows bigger as he waves her inside.

“Rey! Come meet our newest employee—my handsome godson!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy (belated) Valentine's Day!
> 
> As always, thanks so much for the nice support <3


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